title: The psymberin story--biological properties and approaches towards total and analogue syntheses.
abstract: Psymberin is a marine natural product which has attracted a great deal of interest since its isolation: While the highly cytotoxic compound was detected early on as an ingredient in a marine sponge, it took over a decade and 600 additional samples for the structure to eventually be assigned. In the last eight years fascinating synthetic and biosynthetic investigations have led to a more detailed understanding as well as a new starting point for structure-activity studies towards new antitumor compounds. The Review gives an in-depth insight into the progress in the field of the marine polyketide psymberin and demonstrates how organic synthesis is influencing neighboring scientific subjects.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Bioorganische Chemie der Universität Düsseldorf im Forschungszentrum Jülich, Stetternicher Forst, Geb. 15.8, 52426 Jülich (Germany) http://www.iboc.uni-duesseldorf.de. j.pietruszka@fz-juelich.de.
authors.forename: Max
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bielitza
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pietruszka
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001688:Biological Products / Q000737:chemistry*; D003374:Coumarins / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008386:Marine Biology; D015394:Molecular Structure; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D001688:Biological Products; D003374:Coumarins; C498383:psymberin
keywords: anticancer agent; biosynthesis; natural products; structure-activity relationships; total synthesis